Cycling Advice

[nijohnnyuk]

after a long (5 week) wait my ammonia level has dropped to 0 ppm

I tested by NO2 and it is at 0.3mg/l

what's the next step??

 

[BigIan]

are you doing a fishless cycle or cycleing with fish?

 

[geo7x]

ok, so it took 5 weeks for the first addition of ammonia to drop to 0 ok i think there must be something wrong here it should take 1 week or so for the first batch to drop. Do you mean the first batch or for it to drop in 12 hours or less? if it was the first batch then are you sure you added dechlorintor? is there actually something in the filter for the bacteria to grow on? sorry im asking obvious questions but we have to lookat all the possibilities lol . 0.3mg/l of nitrite shows that ammonia is being processed veeeery slowly, but as i said something is wrong. If there is nothing wrong with it then i would definitely look to see if there are any tff media donors in your area, or if you have fishkeeping friends see if they have some mature media to give you. good luck

 

[nijohnnyuk]

IAN - yeah its fishless

GEO -

No it was my very first addition of ammonia - I think I added too much and that's why it took so long
I added Aquasafe (by Tetra aqua) to the water

I have tried here to see if anyone in northern ireland could donate media but no luck

what shoudl I do???

 

[geo7x]

ok, im not sure just how much ammonia you added so maybe if you now (if you havent already done so) add enough ammonia to take it to 3 or 4 mg/l, then wait for that to drop to 0, and tell me/us how long it took? just so we can guage what position you are in at the moment. You can always ask in your lfs for some mature media, not sure what the answer will be though, and if you mention fishless cycling you will get funny looks lol. Its dabatable whether aquasafe does much, but hey. Maybe post in buy sell ans swap section about media? because i know for a fact many people on here are from northern ireland, and may just not of got round to adding their name to the list of donors.

edit: oh and to answer your first post, the next stage in the cycle will be that you keep adding ammonia as soon as it drops to 0, raising it up to 3 or 4, and keep doing this until the ammonia drops to 0 in 12 hours or less, an abudance of nitrite means that the ammonia is being successfully processed. then you keep adding the ammonia when it drops to 0 (daily now) and test for nitrite, then after a while it will shoot down to zero and then the cycle has finished, so you have a long way to go yet

 

[nijohnnyuk]

IAN - yeah its fishless

GEO -

No it was my very first addition of ammonia - I think I added too much and that's why it took so long
I added Aquasafe (by Tetra aqua) to the water

I have tried here to see if anyone in northern ireland could donate media but no luck

what shoudl I do???

CHEERS!!!!!!